Biography

G
iorgos Kanaris was born in Greece. He took his first musical steps in the boys’ choir of his hometown and in the Kanaris family ensemble, which was directed by his father Dimitrios Kanaris. He studied singing with such teachers as Josef Metternich in Munich and attended courses given by Helmuth Rilling and Thomas Quasthoff in Stuttgart and master classes given by Daphne Evangelatos at the Munich College of Music.

He won the special award in the oratorio/song category of the Maria Callas Grand Prix in 2005 and he has been engaged in various concerts conducted by Helmuth Rilling.

He has performed in Orff’s Carmina Burana at the Philarmonie im Gasteig in Munich and Cairo Opera House. Further invitations have notably taken him to Athens, the Prince Regent Theatre of Munich, the Margravial Opera House of Bayreuth and the Ruhr Triennial arts festival.

Giorgos Kanaris has been a regular member of the Bonn Opera since 2009. He made his debut there as Massimo in Handel’s Ezio. He has also played the part of Guglielmo in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte, Figaro in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Sharpless in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Marcello in Puccini’s La boheme, Enrico in Donizzeti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, the title role of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, the Count in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Peter in Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel.

Giorgos Kanaris was among the prize-winners at the Schloss Laubach Contest in 2009. In 2010 he won the prize of the ‘Friends of Bonn Opera’, which is awarded every two years. He received a scholarship from the Richard Wagner Society in 2011.

Giorgos Kanaris is a recitalist as well as an opera singer. Together with the conductor and pianist Thomas Wise he has given numerous recitals with works including Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Liederkreis, Schubert’s Schwanengesang, Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin, Ravel’s Don Quichotte and songs by Richard Strauss and Hans Pfitzner.

Repertoire

Opera

• W. A. Mozart

Don Giovanni

(Don Giovanni & Masetto)

• W. A. Mozart

La Finta Giardiniera

(Nardo)

• W. A. Mozart

Le nozze di Figaro

(Conte d’Almaviva)

• W. A. Mozart

Die Zauberflöte

(Papageno)

• W. A. Mozart

Cosi fan tutte

(Guglielmo)

• G. Rossini

Il barbiere di Siviglia

(Figaro)

• G. Rossini

Il matrimonio segreto

(Conte Robinson)

• G. Rossini

Italiana in Algeri

(Taddeo)

• L.v.Beethoven

Fidelio

(Don Fernando)

• G. Donizetti

Lucia di Lammermoor

(Enrico)

• G. Donizetti

L’elisir d’amore

(Belcore)

• G. Donizetti

Don Pasquale

(Malatesta)

• G. Puccini

Madama Butterfly

(Sharpless)

• G. Puccini

La Bohéme

(Marcello)

• G. Puccini

La Bohéme

(Schaunard)

• G. Puccini

Turandot

(Ping)

• G. Verdi

Jerusalem

(Count of Toulouse)

• G. Verdi

Traviata

(Giorgio Germont)

• G. Bizet

Carmen

(Escamillo & Dancairo)

• G. F. Haendel

Rinaldo

(Argante)

• G. F. Haendel

Ezio

(Massimo)

• G. F. Haendel

Giulio Cesare

(Achillas)

• E. Humperdinck

Hänsel & Gretel

(Peter)

• A. Lortzing

Der Wildschütz

(Graf von Eberbach)

• O. Nicolai

Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor

(Herr Fluth)

• S. Prokofiev

Die Liebe zu den drei Orangen

(Pantalone)

• M. Ravel

L’ heure espagnole

(Ramiro)

• R. Leoncavallo

I Pagliacci

(Silvio)

• R. Wagner

Tristan und Isolde

(Melot)

• L. Delibes

Lakmé

(Fréderic)

• F. Schreker

Der Ferne Klang

(Schmierenschauspieler)

Concert Music

• J. S. Bach

Magnificat

• J. S. Bach

Matthäus-Passion

• L. v. Beethoven

An die ferne Geliebte

• J. S. Bach

Messe in h-Moll

• J. S. Bach

Weihnachtsoratorium

• C. Orff

Carmina Burana

• F. Schubert

Winterreise

• F. Schubert

Schwanengesang

• F. Schubert

Die schöne Müllerin

• R. Schumann

Dichterliebe

• R. Schumann

Liederkreis

• R. V. Williams

Songs of Travel

• M. Ravel

Don Quichotte à Dulcinée

• J. Ibert

Chansons de Don Quichotte

• H. Duparc

Melodies

• G. Fauré

Requiem

• J. Brahms

Ein deutsches Requiem

• J. Haydn

Die Schöpfung

• V. Ullmann

Der Mensch und sein Tag – op. 47

Reviews

Traviata – G. Verdi

“A real public’s favourite is also the greek bariton Giorgos Kanaris in the role of Father Giorgio Germont, who sets domineering bold accents and cares with powerful voice for dynamic.”

Ansgar Skoda

Kultura-extra.de 02/04/2018

“Though the strongest applause went to Giorgos Kanaris, inhabitant of Bonn, whose Giorgio Germont was at his best performance.”

“…the charm of Giorgos Kanaris, who presents a physical as well as vocally expressed and energetic Count”

“Giorgos Kanaris can definitely add in his noble and elegant voice accents of aggressive power of seduction”

“Giorgos Kanaris is a Count Almaviva, who always sets the tone with a pleasant baritone voice”

“Giorgos Kanaris as Almaviva radiates much virile grandeur”

Don Giovanni – Mozart

Giorgos Kanaris is in the title role as a singer and actor a convincing seducer and a charismatic nobleman…the opera house has a Don Giovanni, who hardly lets any desires unfulfilled, that he knows how to articulate the brutal and melancholic guy.

The Greek baritone Giorgos Kanaris is to the Bonn music friends apparently very admired, his continuous repertoire expansion, whatever versatility it demonstrates, is actually exemplary. For the shady Enrico his voice appears to sound a little bit too chivalric, even if his interpretation captures the character very good.

Kanaris with high affinity in the cantilenas of his part and his entrances.

Ralph Siepmann

Opernnetz.de, Bonn 08/12/15

Rinaldo – G. F. Haendel

Giorgos Kanaris’ Argante was an event, because his tremendous playing mood and his wonderfulbariton voice created a perfect roll profile.

Bernhard Hartmann

General Anzeiger-Bonner Rundschau, Bonn 02/12/14

Giorgos Kanaris as a baritonal weather-proof and highly playful Argante.

Christoph Zimmermann

Theaterpur.net, Bonn 02/12/14

Especially thrilled Giorgos Kanaris as Argante. With perfect baritone voice provides the King of Jerusalem and offers a beautiful balance to the high voices of the evening.

Thomas Molke

Online Musik Magazin, Bonn 02/12/14

Giorgos Kanaris with his hearty theatrical playing as Argante had the laughs on his side. His powerful bright baritone voice was astonishingly agile in the coloraturas.

Manfred Langer

Der Opernfreund, Bonn 02/12/14

Giorgos Kanaris was as Argante a powerful-voiced, well sounded bass with soft transitions between the registers.

Zenner

Operapoint 02/12/14

Fidelio – L.v. Beethoven

“The minister was given his noble majesty through Giorgos Kanaris.”

Bernhard Hartmann

General Anzeiger-Bonner Rundschau, Bonn 30/09/14

Die Zauberflöte – W. A. Mozart

Giorgos Kanaris as a lovely comical Papageno, who is quick-thinking sufficient in the end of the opera to put a hooking curtain down with his own hands.

Bernhard Hartmann

General Anzeiger, Bonn 15/12/14

Also Giorgos Kanaris, an ingenuously naive Papageno to love, with his warm and flexible baritone voice.

Gunild Lohmann

General Anzeiger, Bonn 15/04/14

Schwanengesang – Schubert

With Giorgos Kanaris is “Schwanengesang” in the best of hands. That the Bonn’s opera baritone can also sing Lied, has already been proved several times, and also on this evening his expressive interpretations were evident. Kanaris forms the moods of longing and unreturned love, wanderlust and homesickness, pain and happiness with noble restraint; no outbreak goes at the expense of beautiful sound, which his voice also in the high registers through his sonorous bass-range produces. However, the baritone remains in dramatic songs like “Atlas” or “Doppelgänger” vocally impressive: when he opens up, is his singing also physically imposing.

Gunild Lohmann

General Anzeiger, Bonn 18/02/14

Barbier von Sevilla – Rossini

Giorgos Kanaris is a throughout stable Figaro, with slender, flexible and assertive voice, sovereign in every passage.

Stefan Schmöe

Online Musik Magazin, Bonn 21/01/13

Winterreise – Schubert

Giorgos Kanaris, who, among other things, was awarded the prize of the “Opera Friends Bonn”, has attracted in the productions of the opera House much attention, particularly with his very elegant voice. Now, as a Lieder recitalist, he is no less convincing: his bright baritone, which he controls in the high register without tension, can be heard from the very first bar. In the low register he has a beautiful warmth. Giorgos Kanaris comes across the gloom of “Winterreise” very carefully, with a calm narrative tone and an elaborate art of legato. He abstains from mannerism and sentimentality. His interpretation is sensitive, but not sentimental. From other singers people are used to hearing sharper accentuations – Kanaris remains faithful in his concept of sonority. And this takes him over 24 gently shaped Lieder, in which the “Wirtshaus” (taken with the same prayerful quiet) makes perhaps the greatest impression.